MeAggregatorUser owned technology

demonstrator

Initial Aims

• Produce a tool which makes it easier for learners to manage their ‘stuff’

• Hence easier to manage their Digital Identity– And their reputation

• Enable users to engage with a Connectivist style of learning

Audience

• People!• Initially students and staff at our institution– But actually, just people– Oh, and bears…

Approach

• “Web 3” – using ontologies to support a distributed Folksonomical File System (FFS)

• Supporting a trust network• Iterative design and refinement• Open Source by license and practice• Loosely coupled software components• Service Oriented Architecture

Findings & Issues

• Working with 3rd party libraries can cause unexpected delays!

• Loosely coupled components can be very robust, but hard to debug… (no, really?!)

• Users have a range of creative uses for the tool (filing system, calendar…)

• Some institutional systems are highly politicised

More findings & issues…

• There are more services to connect with almost every day…

• It is important to build community from day 1• Building community requires a reasonably

high level of resources• Everyone now seems to be interested in

Digital Identity

Key take homeTake time to re-evaluate approach & don’t be afraid to change.

(we should have done it sooner)